


Games in the Dark

by enigma731



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Porn With Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 19:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the way she’s always expected he’d be, when she’s allowed herself to think about it, images of Clint infiltrating her fantasies. She’s known it was inevitable for months now, possibly even longer, but she hasn’t imagined it would begin the way it did, with his usual certainty in pieces, needing her reassurance at every turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Games in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Sex, light bondage
> 
> Many thanks to [samalander ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander) and [SugarFey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarFey) for beta and enabling, and to [shenshen77](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shenshen77) for being a most excellent cheerleader.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and Natasha is sitting on the couch in her apartment, watching a documentary about a serial killer. It’s the kind of thing that would ordinarily capture her attention, keep her engaged in tracing patterns and motives. If anyone asked, Natasha would tell them that this sort of program keeps her mind sharp, but really she thinks sometimes she just needs the reminder that there are truly evil humans in the world, and that they are still very different from herself.

Clint is sitting next to her, stripping damaged arrows down to the shafts so that they can be used to make more. He recycles them at his own insistence; S.H.I.E.L.D. would have no qualms about providing him with fresh materials every time, but he’s still not accustomed to having an excess of anything, and this particular chore has become something of a ritual for him. It’s a comfort, seeing him gradually return to his usual routines, though she’s aware that nothing is easy for him yet. Two weeks ago it would have been a challenge for him to handle arrows like this, to trust himself with their power.

Today he’s distracted, though, watching her in his peripheral vision when he thinks that she isn’t looking. Natasha is completely aware, of course. She’s seen this look from him before, knows that he has wanted her for years, has wanted her since the moment they met, and though they’ve crossed that line now it’s still new, still not a thing to be taken for granted. She could say something, but she decides to make it a game instead, waiting to see how long it will take before he actually tells her what he wants.

“Are you actually watching that?” he asks, finally. He puts down the arrow he’s been holding, turning to look at her on the couch.

 _Twenty two minutes,_ she notes, which isn’t long, given his usual unending stamina for waiting patiently. For a moment she wonders idly whether it’s a good or bad sign that he’s more insistent, more decisive than usual. She’s hyper-aware of the minutiae of his life these days, searching every movement, every pattern for any indication that he’s slipping into the depths of his own mind again.

“Yes,” she answers, testing him, in a way.  “Why?”

Clint shrugs. “I was just thinking,” he says, and the side of his mouth curls crookedly upwards as the hint of suggestion creeps into his voice, “of all the other things we could be doing right now.” He looks lighter, suddenly, than he has in weeks, and she decides that this is most definitely a good thing.

She cocks her head at him, quirks an eyebrow. If his strategy involves playing coy, then there’s no question she is going to win. “Like what?”

He doesn’t answer, just raises his own eyebrows in reply, then leans in and kisses her, his fingers firm and just a little bit rough against the line of her jaw. She laughs into his mouth, both surprised and pleased by his sudden confidence. This is the way she’s always expected he’d be, when she’s allowed herself to think about it, images of Clint infiltrating her fantasies as she slipped her fingers into her pajama bottoms, touched herself alone in darkness. She’s known it was inevitable for months now, possibly even longer, but she hasn’t imagined it would begin the way it did, with his usual certainty in pieces, needing her reassurance at every turn.

“What?” asks Clint, when he pulls away. “I do something funny?” He gives her a look of mock indignation, but she can see the laughter in his eyes too.

“You’re awfully cocky,” says Natasha.

He grins at her, slipping his arms beneath her knees and around her shoulders, lifting her with a flourish. It isn’t the first time he’s attempted to surprise her, and this time she’s expecting the maneuver, is learning him just as rapidly as he is re-learning to trust himself. She loops an arm around his neck as he carries her toward the bedroom.

Clint puts her down almost unceremoniously in the middle of the bed, stepping back and pulling his shirt over his head. Natasha wastes no time in stripping off her own shirt and jeans, needing no further direction from him. By the time she gets to unclasping her bra he’s fumbling with his belt buckle as if he isn’t the most dexterous man she’s ever met, as if he’s never undressed himself before.

“Hey,” he says when he catches her watching him, looking at her as if he’s just noticed what she’s doing. “Did I say you could do that?”

Natasha freezes with her thumbs hooked in the waistband of her panties, the only thing left before she’s completely naked. He’s still teasing but she hasn’t expected the lilting half-demand in his voice. It sparks something in her that she’s nearly forgotten, an excitement that reminds her of that night in St. Petersburg when he’d chosen to confront her within the walls of the tight little hovel she’d been using as a base, rather than continuing to track her from afar.

No one tells her what to do now, not really. But if he does, she just might listen.

“I need your permission to be naked?” she asks, waiting to see what he’ll do next. She wants him to tell her, she realizes. But she also isn’t about to make it easy. Clint has never backed away from a challenge, and Natasha knows that she is all obstacles.

He blinks at her and there’s a spark in him that she sees suddenly, watches as it catches on the hunger in her and ignites. When he speaks again, his tone has slipped from humor into firmness. It’s still a game, but the competition is real now. “That’s my job.”

“You’re not doing a very good job of it,” she challenges, letting her voice deepen, sandpaper and silk. She watches his face as she slides her panties down her hips, making a show out of shimmying them to her ankles, kicking them in his direction.

Clint catches them in his right hand, looking at the slip of black fabric and swallowing visibly. “Stop that,” he manages as he wins his fight with the belt buckle and shoves his pants and boxers down to the floor.

Natasha licks her lips, trailing her fingers languidly down her abdomen, making a soft sound as she slips them between her thighs, arching into her own hand. “Make me.”

“Fuck, Tasha,” he practically growls, and he’s already hard as he climbs her body, his dick pressing against her thigh making her groan.

He catches her wrist and stills her hand, pulling her fingers into his mouth and sucking them clean. The sensation of his tongue on her skin makes her shudder, his body hot and solid on top of hers as he pins her legs with one of his own. His eyes are dark and possessive as he captures her other wrist, lifting both of her hands above her head, coaxing until she picks up on his lead and wraps them around the slats of the heavy wooden headboard.

“Stay like that,” he orders. “Don’t move until I say you can.”

She could defy him. She could free herself and flip him on his back, could put her hands around his throat and make him come undone underneath her. She could make him love it. But that isn’t what she wants, at least not right now. Clint has never been afraid to push her. Has never been afraid of _her,_ and suddenly she needs to know that part of him has survived. Natasha looks up at him with her jaw set, breathing hard already.

He looks taken aback for a moment, as though he’s expected more of a fight from her, or perhaps an outright refusal. It sends an ache of pleasure through her as she watches the realization in his face, sees a moment of something edging on wonder, something that almost scares her. Clint is good at hiding, but not good enough to have kept his attraction from her for long. The surprise had been realizing her own feelings, realizing that she is capable of a condition as vulnerable as love.

“Good,” he breathes, as he digs his fingers into her hair, tugs her head back with just enough force to make her shiver at the hint of pain.

He kisses her again, short and filthy, pinching her lip between his teeth before working his way down her neck. He hasn’t shaved in a day or two, and the hint of stubble against her skin is glorious, coarse and raw. Moving lower still, he curls his tongue into her navel before sucking insistently at her hipbone, at the junction of her inner thigh, marking her skin with bruises that she knows won’t fade for days.

Natasha shifts her hips impatiently against the bed, trying to find impossible friction with the mattress under her, to guide his mouth closer to where she really wants it. Clint snorts against her skin, his breath causing a little eruption of goosebumps, and she makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, making a show of rattling the headboard against the wall, but not letting go of it. The muscles in her arms are starting to burn as she strains forward, and it only adds to her want.

“What’s the rush?” asks Clint, sounding absolutely delighted.

“Just remember,” says Natasha, “I can make you pay later.”

He chuckles, his voice going low and husky, matching hers. “You’d better,” he answers, and presses a kiss to her inner thigh, slow, and gentle, and lingering, so that it makes her want to positively scream.

Clint rests his chin on her knee, watching her as he slips his hand between her legs and flicks his thumb over her clit quickly, lightly, more teasing than real contact. Natasha glares at him, because apparently threatening him was not enough to get her point across, but he only laughs again, evidently enjoying her frustration.

“Come on,” she orders, because he might be in control right now, but she isn’t about to beg. At least not yet. “I’ll hurt you.”

“Was that a threat or a promise?” he asks playfully, teasing again with his fingertips and she snarls at him, capturing his hand between her thighs and squeezing, letting him feel the full force of her strength because he hasn’t said anything to prohibit her from doing _that_.

Clint sucks in a gasp that is equal parts surprise and lust, making a guttural sound and grinding his erection into the mattress for a moment. “I see how it’s going to be.”

Shifting on the bed, he pins her hip down with one hand, sweeping his tongue over her, drawing a moan from the back of her throat. Evidently having finished teasing her, he wastes no more time, slipping one finger and then a second inside of her. It’s the first time he doesn’t have her hands to guide him, but he moves quickly, assuredly, verging on roughness, exactly the way that she wants right now. Kissing the place where her leg meets her hip, he shifts his head to the side and laves his tongue over her clit again, alternately stroking and sucking insistently. Natasha throws her head back against the pillow, rolling her hips forward to meet his movements. He groans against her, and it sends a jolt of pleasure straight through her core, makes her frantic.

Her breath is coming in shallow gasps, the muscles in her arms on fire, and if he stops now, she thinks that she might actually be tempted to snap his neck. But Clint isn’t stupid, apparently doesn’t have a death wish, because he quickens his pace until she’s hanging on the precipice between pleasure and pain. Her awareness of the world falls away until there is nothing but the slick hot silk of his mouth, the roughness of his fingers on her. She comes with the weight of his hand on her hip, as though he might need to hold her together.

It takes her a moment to regain her equilibrium, to realize that she’s still gripping the headboard with white knuckles, that she’s managed to actually pull it away from the wall with the strength of her climax. Clint grins, crawling back up her body, and takes hold of her hands very gently.

“You can let go now,” he whispers, mock-sweetly in her ear, as if she needs to be told.

Natasha lets go of the bed in a rush and grabs a handful of his hair instead, pulling him into a rough kiss, reclaiming the taste of herself from his lips. He groans into her mouth, grinding his dick against her hip, and she knows that she has never made him this hard before.

“I think,” she says, nipping his lip, “that I promised you payback.”

She is a master of strategy, knows nothing as well as manipulation, and already there’s a new plan forming. She likes to think that she doesn’t use her particular skill set for evil anymore. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be downright wicked now.

Carefully untangling herself from Clint, Natasha sits up. He settles on his back, watching her intently. She surveys the items on her bedside table for a moment before deciding on a scarf, discarded from the day before. It’s a thin slip of red fabric, perfect for what she has in mind, and she lets the loose end of it trail across his chest as she settles on top of him.

“Do you trust me?” she asks against his ear. “Do you trust me to do this?” Natasha loops the scarf around his bicep, letting him feel the silkiness against his skin. Letting him feel also that it is strong, but not an insurmountable restraint.

Clint shudders under her, drawing a shaky breath that she isn’t sure how to read at first. For a moment she thinks that she has made a mistake, that this is too much so soon. But there’s something in his eyes when she meets them, something that makes her feel dark and hungry and again not so unlike the girl he rescued years ago from the snow and the men in shadows.

He nods once, a sharp, decisive motion. “Yes.”

He lifts his arms over his head without another word, watching her as she winds the slip of red silk around his wrists and ties the knots she knows so well. He could break the bonds if he wanted to, but Natasha knows that he won’t. She smiles once and whispers, “Don’t move,” against his ear before rolling off of him.

His jaw clenches as she settles on her back, puts her own hand between her thighs again, spreading herself gently for him to watch. He groans as she strokes herself slowly, still hot and wet with the memory of his mouth. His cock twitches when she thumbs her clit, humming low in her throat, and she’s already throbbing again for release. She gives Clint another few seconds of this show before forcing herself to stop and return her focus to him.

She guides him into position as she settles between his legs, taking hold of his length. Natasha strokes the underside of his cock very lightly, first with a finger, then with the tip of her tongue, letting him feel her breath against his skin.

“More,” he grates out and she listens, for now, taking him in her mouth. He gasps, clearly fighting to keep still against the bed, and she thinks, suddenly, of how close she has come to losing him, of how it had felt when his mind was lost. In this moment he is _hers_ , and she wants to keep him like this, tethered to her, wants to drive out the demons with her fingers and her tongue.

Clint is practically panting now, his wrists straining against the bonds reflexively, but not hard enough to break them. His gaze is intent on her. She’s brought entire armies to their knees, but never before has any man’s desire filled her with such need, hot adrenaline straight to her core as if he might be caressing her with his eyes alone. She feels drunk with it, aches with it, lets it drive her to push him to the edge.

“You close?” she asks, though she knows the answer, can feel it in the way the muscles of his thighs are trembling beneath her touch.

He only nods again.

“Here’s how this works,” says Natasha, because she knows that he trusts her, knows that he _loves_ her, and she still needs to see how far this can go. “I’m going to ride you now. And we’re going to see how long that legendary stamina of yours can last, because you aren’t going to come until you have permission.” She drags her teeth across his clavicle before kissing the spot tenderly.

“Oh, god,” he breathes, a tremor going through his entire body.

She straddles his hips in one decisive motion, taking hold of his cock and sinking down onto it, inhaling sharply at the familiar sensation of him filling her. For a moment she doesn’t move at all, watching as his brow furrows in something akin to agony. Natasha starts her rhythm slowly, offering him a feral grin as he drives his hips cautiously upward. Just watching her effect on him is enough to send her quickly toward the edge this time, and she moves harder and faster to meet him. Clint curses loudly when she slips a hand between them to touch herself again, and she strokes almost brutally with her fingers and her hips, the muscles in her arms and her thighs a delicious swath of fire. His entire body spasms beneath her when she comes, somehow still managing to stave off his own orgasm a little longer.

She watches his face as she rides out the waves of pleasure, keeps their eyes locked. His entire body is rigid beneath hers, battling his own need, but he says nothing. After a moment, she lifts herself off of him carefully, and she’s actually impressed that he’s been able to hold out this long.

“Tasha,  _please_ ,” he whispers when she runs a hand through his hair, and she’s not sure she’s ever heard him sound so desperate.

Natasha unties his hands slowly, methodically, aware of the way his breathing hitches, eyes slipped closed with the intense concentration she knows so well, turned inward now. When the scarf is loose she lays it on the bedside table then kisses him once, giving silent permission for him to take what he needs.

Clint moves immediately, rolling them over so that she’s on her back, and Natasha lifts her legs onto his shoulders because she can be charitable sometimes too. He fucks her without reservation, hard and fast, focused entirely now on finding his own release. She feels him growing frantic almost immediately, losing any sense of rhythm, his breath all ragged gasps. And then he shifts slightly, changing the angle to drive even deeper once, twice before he finally comes with a strangled cry, breaking his usual silence.

He keeps still for a moment before he slips out, crawls back up her body.

“God,” he breathes into her neck as she gently kisses his wrist where the scarf has rubbed his skin raw. He wraps his arms around her as soon as she lets him go, his entire body shaking with exhaustion.

“Are you okay?” asks Natasha, because she has to be sure, even though instinct tells her that she knows the answer.

“Hell yes,” he says, his voice rumbling against her skin.

There’s a comfort in the way he’s lying beside her now, heavy and still in a way she’s been afraid he might never get back. Natasha cards her fingers into his hair, and allows herself to relax as well, concentrating on the way that his body is all warmth, solid and real against her, so different from desperate chill of knowing he was lost. She has spent so much of the past few weeks focused on action, on rebuilding, on finding him and drawing him back to the world that she has scarcely allowed herself to feel any sort of relief.

It isn’t over, everything is changing still, but as she lays her palm against his chest and feels his heart beating slow and even, Natasha thinks that he will heal with the rest of the world. She’s surprised to find that she knows how to help with that.


End file.
